Model Context Protocol

Your catalog. Inside every AI agent.

Arlo's MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Siri, and any MCP-aware assistant query your library directly — using the open protocol Anthropic published and the industry adopted in 2024. No custom plugin. No middleware. One endpoint — https://api.arlotv.ai/mcp/v1 — authenticated with your API key.

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What is MCP

The USB-C port for AI agents.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI models read from external data sources in real time. Before MCP, every AI app needed bespoke integration code for every data source — a quadratic mess. After MCP, any agent can connect to any MCP server and discover what it can do.

Arlo runs as an MCP server. Your catalog — every title, every vibe vector, every availability link — is exposed as a structured tool surface. When a user asks Claude "what's a quiet Sunday-morning documentary?", Claude can call Arlo's recommend_for_mood tool, read your titles back, and return them in its answer.

Industry context: Anthropic introduced MCP in November 2024. OpenAI, Google, and the major IDEs added support across 2025. By mid-2026, every major AI assistant ships with MCP.
How to connect

Three minutes from key to first answer.

01
Claude Desktop / Claude.ai
Add Arlo as a Custom Connector in Settings → Connectors → Add Custom MCP Server. Transport is Streamable HTTP. The headers block is required — put your X-API-Key there; requests without a key are rejected.
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "arlo": {
      "url": "https://api.arlotv.ai/mcp/v1",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}
02
Cursor / Windsurf / Continue
Add the same server config to your IDE's MCP settings file. Restart the editor. Arlo's tools appear in the agent's tool list automatically.
03
n8n / automation platforms
Use the MCP Client node with URL https://api.arlotv.ai/mcp/v1, transport Streamable HTTP, and an X-API-Key header. ChatGPT and other MCP-aware hosts work the same way — point them at the endpoint.
04
Custom integration
Any MCP-compliant client works — use the Anthropic mcp SDK (Python / TypeScript) with Streamable HTTP. Quick liveness check below; actual tool calls need the MCP handshake, which clients do automatically. (Legacy SSE clients only: https://api.arlotv.ai/sse.)
curl https://api.arlotv.ai/mcp/health
# → {"status":"ok"}
Tool surface

What agents can do.

Every Arlo MCP server exposes the same set of tools, scoped to whatever the API key has access to. No undocumented endpoints — every tool is discoverable via standard MCP introspection. The friendly names below are live aliases; each maps to a canonical tool name (shown beneath) that works identically.

Tool
What it does
Returns
search_titles
= arlo_discover
Vector + lexical search across your catalog.
Title[] with score, slug, poster, sources
recommend_for_mood
= ask_arlo
Vibe-aware recommendation. Takes a natural-language message + optional history.
Pick[] with reasoning, source platforms
get_title
= arlo_get_enrichment
Full record by slug: catalog metadata + Arlo enrichment.
Title (full, incl. enrichment)
find_similar
= arlo_similar_to
Semantic neighbors of a given title.
Title[] (top N)
arlo_usage
Your organization's MCP usage this billing period — calls used vs. your plan's allotment, per-tool breakdown, plan limits.
{plan, monthly_calls, by_tool}
arlo_attribution
Your organization's recommendation funnel — shown → clicked → start → complete, with rates and top titles by CTR.
{funnel, rates, top_titles}
In conversation

What it looks like.

End-user prompt to an AI agent. The agent invokes Arlo's MCP server behind the scenes; the user sees only the answer.

user → claude
Find me a slow documentary I can watch right now on something I'm already subscribed to.
claude (via arlo mcp)
From your subscriptions: Honeyland on Hulu — a beekeeper in Macedonia, gentle pace, one of the most photographed lives in recent cinema. The Salt of the Earth on Kanopy — Wim Wenders following Sebastião Salgado through forty years of photographs. Both calm. Both about looking, not arguing.
Auth & limits

Your catalog needs a key.

Anything that touches your catalog authenticates with the X-API-Key header (or Authorization: Bearer) tied to your organization. Your key scopes every tool to your catalog and meters usage on your org:

Arlo also runs a free, keyless tier for public discovery— what to watch, where to watch it, what's popular, what's coming. It is neutral and cross-service, it never reaches a partner catalog, and it is how an assistant cites Arlo without anyone signing up. Connect it in a minute →

Tier
MCP calls/mo
Rate limit
No key
public discovery
per-IP — free, no signup
Starter
10,000
60 req/min — free
Growth
100,000
300 req/min — $299/mo
Scale
1,000,000
1,000 req/min — $999/mo
Enterprise
custom / unlimited
10,000 req/min — custom

Over-limit calls return 429 with a Retry-After header; X-RateLimit-* headers ride on every response.

Put your catalog inside every AI agent.

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